Surfing: Classical music, finless surfing merge in uncharted waters

For years, the act of filming a surf movie has existed as a formulaic enterprise: record professional surfers in the world's most coveted surfing lineups, add up-tempo soundtrack, maybe splice in some lifestyle b-roll, throw a ubiquitous and unnecessary release party, roll credits.

With little exception, the surf film as an artistic property has stood idly by while the genre has been co-opted by those with the belief that a surf film should serve more as an inducement to go surfing than a work of art.

The recent release of an independently produced Australian surf film, “Musica Surfica,” however, attempts to remedy that principle.

The film follows the collaboration of legendary surfer, writer and thinker Derek Hynd with world-renowned Australian classical musician Richard Tognetti, who is the artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and a surfer.

In 2007, the two men got together and forged the highly unorthodox idea of gathering classical musicians and surfers together for a sort of artistic symposium on rural King Island, Australia. King Island has a population of 2,000, but only about 10 of those residents surf. The assembled surfers were asked to remove their fins from their boards. The assembled musicians were asked to provide a free-form score. The result is a sharing of ideas and art forms captured in the “Musica Surfica.”

The film's creator, Mick Sowry, admits that even he didn't completely understand the connection between classical music and surfing when he began filming.

“It was all very disorganized, but for me the opportunity was too good to miss, though I still didn't quite get it.”

After filming was completed, the movie's theme began to unveil itself to Sowry. “The connection Richard made was that perhaps by drawing audiences in to see surfing in a classical setting, these atypical concert-goers might become inspired to engage with classical music on a more regular basis,” he said. “And the finless surfing became an analogy for moving out of your comfort zone, to learn you need to do new things, not rehash the old. Essentially, the rewards of risk in creativity.”

There is much of that in the film. For surfers – who today often ride the same kinds of boards on the same kinds of waves in the same kinds of ways – this intellectual encouragement (by way of fin removal) is particularly refreshing to watch. Fins serve many purposes on a surfboard, perhaps most importantly forcing the back end of the board to stay in the back, but also enabling the board to turn much more easily. Removing the fins, the idea went, was akin to learning how to surf all over again.

“Derek had been surfing finless for about a year or so,” Sowry said. “His exploration with it began when he was attempting to teach a friend to surf, and he wanted to engage his empathetic gear to understand what it was like to learn again.”

By taking surfing out of its most recognizable form, and by coupling it with the unconventional soundtrack of classical music, the film opens itself up to a new audience as well.

“If it had been a bunch of pro surfers on thrusters (the most conventional, three-fin surfboard), it'd be more of the same,” Sowry said. “It would essentially be wham-bam surfing that has little interest to nonsurfers, and again to nonsurfers is an anti-intellectual activity. Surfers know it is more than that, but to demonstrate an active exploration of something genuinely new was important and I think has helped engage new audiences, and the longtime surfers out there seem to be getting it as well.”

Indeed they do. The film has opened to rave reviews and won the New York Surf Film Festival. While surf films often hold little interest with surfers interested in the sport beyond the merits of the most popular surfers in the world, “Musica Surfica” represents a refreshing dose of the spirit of surfing at its most genuine. That is, surfing as a means of creativity made manifest in nature. It certainly succeeds at that.

For more information on Sowry and the “Musica Surfica” project, or to order a copy, go to safetosea.blogspot.com.